The electron density profile in the ionosphere is measured by the total electron content (TEC). The presence of a ledge of ionization in the ionosphere affects the measured values. In this article, a new method of estimation of the electron density in inhomogeneous ionized media having a one‐peak profile is presented. This can be accomplished by measurement of the propagation delay time of multiple reflected pulses from the media. Numerical experiments are performed for verification. The estimated profile obtained by the new method and by numerical experiments exhibited good agreement with the true profile. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn, 82(11): 1–7, 1999